According to Mr. Thai, a part of sugarcane farmers has switched to grow other crops after suffering losses from growing sugarcanes for a long time or they did not take care of their sugarcanes, leading to poor quality and low productivity. Therefore, the area of material sugarcanes of CASUCO in the 2018-2019 crop dropped drastically with production only meeting from 350,000 to 400,000 tons for the 2019-2020 crop, not enough material for both refineries to operate.
As a result, CASUCO decided that it will only maintain operation of Phung Hiep Sugar Refinery and temporarily halt operation of Vi Thanh Sugar Refinery. Although operation of Vi Thanh Sugar Refinery is paused, the company pledged to buy all sugarcanes that it had signed investment contract/purchase contract in the material area of the company. It will not buy sugarcanes via traders so as to reduce intermediary costs and post-harvest losses.
The company said that it has been rushing to deploy policy to invest seedlings, specialized fertilizers to directly support sugarcane farmers. It plans to develop the material area from 10,000 to 15,000 hectares so as to provide enough material for its two sugar refineries to run steadily and sustainably. In the 2020-2021 crop, it will bring the Vi Thanh Sugar Refinery back to operation.
